The Menstuff® library lists pertinent books on Mentoring. See books on adolescence, ritual initiation and issues on fathers & daughters, organizations Simba, and publications New Moon Girl. Also see kidstuff..
Albom, Mitch, Tuesdays with Morrie: An old man, a young
man and life's greatest lesson. Maybe it was a grandparent, or
a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who
understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see
the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help
you make your way through it. For the author, that person was
Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years
ago. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made
your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder.
Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger
questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life
today the way you once did when you were younger. This book is a
magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch
shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world. Doubleday 1997
Buy
This Book!
Bly, Robert, Iron John: A book about men.
When Bill Moyer's PBS special on the author aired in the
winter of 1990, it brought forth an unprecedented flood of calls
and letters from both men and women attesting to the pain and
confusion experienced by many contemporary men. This is the
author's long-awaited book on male initiation and the role of the
mentor, the result of ten years' work with men to discover the
truths about masculinity that get beyond the stereotypes of our
popular culture. In the tradition of Blake, Yeats, and D.H.
Lawrence, the author has turned to the most ancient stories and
legends to remind men and women of welcome images long forgotten,
images of a vigorous masculinity both protective and emotionally
centered. He takes as the frame of his bok the tale of "Iron
John", which the Grimm brothers collected in the early nineteenth
century, but which in its themes and motifs goes back thousands of
years. In the story, an ancient "hairy man" - Iron John - becomes
a mentor to a young boy, and each event or adventure is regarded
as a stage in male growth. As the author retells the story, he
stops at times to reflect on initiation rituals for men which
still go on in some parts of the world or are still remembered in
epics such as The Odyssey. As the book progresses, it
brings together a rich and coherent picture of what it has meant
through time to pass from boyhood into manhood. Throughout that
long history of initiation the role of the older men has been
central. Yet in our own time, the young men he observes are
hungering for the father and the mentor as intensely as they
hunger for food. Some say stuck in the "tough guy" mode. Others
linger in the naivete that destroys relationships, so doubtful of
themselves that they can be life preserving...but not life giving.
This book is at the same time a new version and a very ancient
vision of adult manhood, one that has depth, vividness, and
solidity. It reconfirms the power of anckent stories to guide, to
heal, and to convey the deepest truths. Addison-Wesley Publishing,
1990 ISBN 0-201-51720-5 Buy
This Book!
Garbarino, James, Lost
Boys: Why our sons turn violent and how we can save
them. After more than a decade of increase in the urban war
zones of large cities, violence by young boys and adolescents is
on the rise in our suburbs, small towns, and rural communities.
The author believes that boys everywhere really are angrier and
more violent than ever before. In light of the recent school-based
shootings, it's now clear that no matter where we live or how hard
we try as parents, chances are our children are going to school
with troubled boys (and girls, ed.) capable of getting guns and
pulling triggers. This books shows why young men and boys have
become increasingly vulnerable to violent crime and how lack of
adult supervision and support poses a real and growing threat to
our children's basic safety. For these vulnerable boys, violence
can become normal, the "right thing to do". Fortunately, parents
can spot troubled boys and take steps to protect their famlies
from violence if they know what signs to look for - lack of
connection, masking emotions, withdrawal, silence, rage, trouble
with friends, hypervigilance, cruelty toward other children and
even animals - all warning signs that every parent and peer can
recognize and report. By outlining the steps parents, teachers,
and public officials can take to keep all children safer, the
author holds out hope and solutions for turning our kids away from
violence, before it's too late. This may be the most important and
original book ever written about boys. The Free Press www.SimonSays.com
1999 ISBN 0-684-85908-4 Buy
This Book
Gilbert, Roland & Cheo Tyehimba-Taylor, The Ghetto
Solution. African American men helping African American boys
to become African American men is the cycle we need to make our
communities and country work for all of us. The Simba program
described in this book is a powerful and important way to make it
happen. Connections between caring adults and youth are essential
for the healthy development of children. The author understands
how to assure and nurture these relationships for the youth who
are often forgotton and left behind. This story is inspirational.
Everybody concerned about our future should read this book. WRS,
1993 ISBN 1-56796-021-9 Buy
This Book
Gurian, Michael, The Wonder of
Boys: What parents, mentors and educators can do to
shape boys into exceptional men. Parenting boys has always
held special challenges. Today, the decline of traditional
families, shifting values, the lure of gangs, the loss of positive
male role models, and the widespread depiction of irresponsible
sexuality can all lure boys away from the direction in which we
hope they will grow. In this insightful and practical book, the
author describes what boys need to become strong, responsible,
sensitive men. It offers a concrete plan that begins at home, but
extends deep into the community. The author has the courage to
advocate for moral and spiritual values, for teaching boys about
sex and love, and finally for a new male model of "husbandry," not
just of family, but also of the commuity and the earth.
Tarcher/Putnam, www.putnam.com
1996 ISBN 0-87477-8341-X Buy
this book!
Jarmea, William, Fathering the Next Generation: Men
mentoring men, Crossroads, 1995
Jones, Terry, The Elder Within: The
source of mature masculinity. This is an exploration into the
potential of eldership, the second half of life expression of
mature masculinity. It surveys the way a man can tap this
archetypal energy within himself. The author has developed a
passion for understanding what a healthy and spiritual expressoin
of masculinity would look like. By participating in ritualized
weekend workshops and ongoing men's groups, he found that many men
share a hunger for spiritual and emotional growth and the desire
to make a difference. He believes that the man who embraces
eldership makes himself available to younger men, to the family
and to the community. He has confidence in the fruits of his long
life of experience and wants to see the future by sharing with the
young. This book examines traditional male qualities, such as
protector, while painting a picture of the mature masculine who
energizes himself by using tools of wisdom: meditation,
contemplation, and listening. This book is a must read for both
men and women alike, as it presents an enlightened view of the
elder as a major contributor to society. This is a much needed
resource for empowerment of mature men as well as an enlightened
forecast of the journey many men will travel. Bookpartners,
www.bookpartners.com
2001, ISBN 1-59151-088-8 Buy
This Book!
Quinn, Jay, The Mentor: A memoir
of friendship and gay identity. Nearly hidden amid the lush
and gaudy overgrowth of mainstream heterosexual America is a trail
of homosexual mentors - gay adults whose steps and experience
guide the staggering efforts of gay youth - that leads back as far
as ancient Greece and forward as far as our hopeful imaginations
can take us. As an artist, a writer, a lover and a man, the author
has followed that path and this book is the literary and
celebratory record of his journey. Although you wouldn't know it
by the popular demonization of the modern gay lifestyle - an
apparent emotional junkyard littered with reckless pickups and
burned-out hedonists - there has long been a tradition of fatherly
one-on-one, man-to-man mentoring that continues to be gently
uphelp around the world. And just as the 24 year-old Truman Capote
was chaperoned around Paris by Jean Cocteau, and a teenage James
Baldwin was befriended, nurtured, and lovingly raised in Greenwich
Village by the flamboyant painter Beauford Delany, in a later
decade and a very different part of the world, another
writer-to-be was led forward by the hand of an elder man. The
author's now seventeen-year allegiance with Joe Riddick began when
he was twenty-three and his newly begun life was "just ending its
continental shift into a full acceptance of a gay
identity." From that day, he directs us generously
onward - as he was directed generously onward - through his
initiations, both sensual and emotional, through his rowdy social
trails and silent personal wrestlings, and through his hesitant
and often bumbling attempts to "clinb up Joe's backbone" to a
place of comfort, wisdom, and love. Students, teachers, and anyone
interested in gay studies and experiences will find this book
delivers a captivating and honest link at the social, religious,
and emotional aspects of what it is like to grow up as a
contemporary southern gay man. Harrington Park Press, 2000
ISBN 1-56023-937-9 Buy
This Book!
Stuecker, Ric & Suze Rutherford,
Reviving the Wonder: 76 activities that touch the inner
spirit of youth. Once upon a time, when culture was whole, it
would initiate its youth into maturity using time-honored and
carefully worked out methods designed to pass on deep spiritual
truths and essential learning necessary for taking ones place as
an adult in the community. Today, at a time when culture is
framented almost beyond recognition (as part of this culture, we
see only dimly the extent of this damage), youth are left more or
less to their own devices to puzzle out the intricacies of this
labyrinthine mess and to figure out how to find a place for
themselves in its disintegrating fragments. The results of this
are only to obvious: depression, suicide, eating disorders,
substance abuse, fatal "accidents", school violence, sexual
assaults, apathy, despair, numbness, and rampant cynicism among
our adolescenes. Not having had the initiations, the adults in our
society have lately too often responded to these symptoms of
cultural breakdown with broken-down methods of their own,
including "zero tolerance" policies, as if saying "there will be
no xyz" is sufficient to make it go away; psychoactive
medications, which may be a sort of biochemical compensation for
living in a non-whole world; incarceration, where juveniles are
increasingly being treated like adults in courts of law; and
"higher standards" as if raising the bar will somehow make
everyone a little bit taller. This book stands for something
deeply redemptive in the midst of all these mischarted policies.
It is based upon the belief that only healthy adults working in a
safe and healing space with youth can help them cross the bridge
from childhood to maturity. This book is filled with activities,
ideas, tips, and inspiration, designed to provide such a space
within which healthy adults can help adolescents pick up the
pieces that society left on the floor when it "dropped the bag"
and failed its youngsters long ago.What is particularly refreshing
about this book is that it acknowleges the wonder of adolescence.
We're apt to forget this fact when we hear a litany of teenage
troubles broadcast in the media. But the teenage years are times
of great existential musings, aesthetic imaginings, intellectural
explorations, and spiritual yearnings. Research Press, www.researchpress.com,
2001, ISBN 0-87822-474-2 Buy
this book!Of adults who had unfamous role models growing up, 16% of women
and 5% of men chose their mothers, 16% of women and 43% of men chose
their fathers.
It's a sad commentary on our times when our young must seek advice
and counsel from "Dear Abby" instead of going to Mom and Dad. -
Abigail Van Buren
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